Healthy Environment - a Prerequisite for Good Health - Minister of Environment Siri Bjerke

Minister of the Environment Siri Bjerke, Opening speech at the 6th World Congress on Environmental Health - Oslo, 5 June 2000

Healthy Environment - a Prerequisite for Good Health

Madame President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

It gives me great pleasure to open this 6th World Congress on Environmental Health.

I am deeply impressed by the work of The International Federation of Environmental Health, promoting the exchange of information and experience on this important issue, and creating contact between environmental health professionals worldwide.

I am especially pleased to help raise awareness on the relations between health and environment on this specific day, The World Environment Day. Every year since the first UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972, June 5 ^th> has been a day to highlight a range of environmental challenges. When the World Commission for Environment and Development presented their report Our Common Future in 1987, Gro Harlem Brundtland - head of the commission - was asked why health did not have its own chapter in the book? She replied – Every page of this book is about health!

Earlier this year the Norwegian Governement launched a plan of action for health and environment. This congress gives me an opportunity to focus on the important links between a healthy environment and good health, and what the Norwegian Governement is doing in this field.

Negative environmental conditions, such as the pollution of fjords, have made it necessary to advise people not to eat seafood caught in the area because of possible negative health effects. Also, life in the fjord itself might become affected and some species and populations might be threatened. The result is that when we pollute our fjords – we put both our health and the environment at risk.

On the other hand, positive environmental factors like preserving a forest-area can mean a lot for our wellbeing, quality of life and health because of its value as a recreation area, in addition to preserving the biological diversity. Therefore, in the long run a healthy environment and a sustainable use of our natural resources are prerequisites for good health for the coming generations.

Initiatives to improve environmental conditions will also benefit our health. It is therefore important that people who work with questions related to health and the environment work together.

On an international level, health and environmental ministers of the World Health Organisation approved a European action plan for health and environment in June 1994. Furthermore - they agreed to develop national action plans to follow up this plan at the national level.

Our Norwegian national action plan was published in February this year. In addition to discussing negative environmental factors – as was done in the European plan - it includes the positive factors, such as quality in our surroundings. The action plan includes concrete measures to meet pressing environmental challenges – how we should solve local air-pollution problems, discharges of hazardous chemicals and noise-problems. But the main purpose of the plan is to develop and implement a more coherent policy between the health authorities and the environmental authorities.

The action plan focuses on four major areas where we will put our efforts.

1. The first effort is to make the State management more coherent and efficient . To achieve this we need stronger co-operation between environment and health authorities, both on a national and at a local level.

2. Further, we need simpler regulations. The legal framework for health and the environment should be formulated in such a way that it creates favourable conditions for municipalities and business to work systematically within an overall sustainability perspective.

3. We would like themunicipalities to play a more central role within an environmentally directed health care. The municipalities - in collaboration with their citizens - should to a greater extent, themselves set goals and priorities in the areas of environment and health.

4. As e nvironment and health is the responsibility of us all – we need a joint effort from all sectors to be able to improve environmental and health conditions nationally and locally. We would therefore also like to challenge all sectors that do not already work especially with health or environmental issues to join forces.

---------------------------

The overall theme of this Congress: "Healthy Environments - The Local Challenge" agrees more or less completely with Local Agenda 21 (LA21). Local Agenda 21 emphasizes the importance of thinking in a long-term perspective, over generations, and of focusing on children's situation particularly. The methodology for implementing Local Agenda 21 clearly emphasises citizen participation and the responsibility for information and transparency that rests on local politicians and the public administration system.

Since Rio in 1992 more than 2000 local communities in 64 countries have decided to take the challenge and have started their local Agenda processes. In Norway the 1998 Fredrikstad Declaration invites local and regional authorities, businesses and industry, as well as organisations to use the tools at their disposal to make the transition to sustainable development. In every county you will find a so called Regional focal point – a person who will organise networks for learning and training, inspire, co-ordinate and assist participants with methods and professional knowledge.

The philosophy behind Local Agenda 21 emphasizes greater public participation. Our experiences in Norway show that it is important to stay close to home. The nearest units, such as families and households must be listed. And we must, of course, make use of existing organisations and networks. Sometimes it is necessary to create new ones. Our enthusiasm is often expressed through the clubs and societies of which we are members. For many people, it is the voluntary work itself that gives them quality of life. Particularly if your saying counts in a field you care about.

It is a challenge for politicians and planners to listen to the voices that are rarely heard in the ordinary planning process. Who knows best where the wood anemone flowers in the spring? - the children who pass the wood on their way to school, or the planners sitting in the town hall, drawing lines on a map? Joint decisionmaking at the right time can smooth conflicts and produce better results.

The Norwegian Healthy Cities network plays an active role in developing increased attention on health- and environmental questions in planning and decisionmaking. Another important task for the network is to secure participation and co-operation from thei Healthy Cities inhabitants. Their development and use of health profiles and studies, including environmental questions, will be presented and discussed later on at this conference.

Local Agenda 21 represents a common challenge and new possibilities for co-operation between the environment- and health sectors at all levels. To as great extent as possible, municipalities should set their own goals and priorities for environment and health in consultation with their citizens. Support to local authorities, NGOs and other participants in their joint effort to create sustainable local communities, will be of main concern to our Government.

The Plan- and Building Act provides a good platform for co-ordinating environment and health at all levels. The health dimension related to questions of land use and preservation of environmental qualities, are significant issues. Still they are only to a small degree articulated and integrated in planning processes. In Norway - as in many other countries, local authorities have an obligation to inform the public, and to invite local voluntary organizations as well as industry to participate in planning processes. At the same time there are national guidelines and policies that must be taken into consideration at the local level. Decisions concerning land-use are delegated to the municipal level. This leaves the local communities with great challenges in terms of co-ordinating planning to serve the differing needs of the public, industry and trade: indeed, they complain that far too much of their budgets are tied up through national decisions. My preliminary conclusion is that the legal framework for local handling of the global challenges is well developed, but it has to be actively used.

----------------------------------------

Debates on health- and the environment have traditionally focused on the destructive, environmental aspects such as chemical substances, air- and water-pollution, waste disposals, noise, and so forth. From my point of view, the time is right for focusing on the positive, physical environment that can bring us fresh strength and help manage our daily-lives. I’m thinking of aspects such as aesthetics, quality in our surroundings, cultural environment, contact with nature and outdoor-recreation.

40-50 years ago physical activity played a natural part in people's daily-life. Most of us walked or bicycled to school, for shopping or to work. Spontaneous games and sports out in the open were usual. According to one of the contributors to this congress, Professor Gunnar Tellnes from the University of Oslo, one of the effects of society’s modernisation is less physical activity out in the open. An epidemic increase in diseases such as age-diabetes and osteoporosis (beinskjørhet) is a result.

In an environmental perspective outdoor-recreation is essential both as a preventive and a curing "medicine". Outdoor recreation in combination with experiencing the cultural environment, has an immense potential for building health, prosperity, the feeling of belonging somewhere and as a source for creativity in a local community. We experience that our references change rapidly ; the local backstreet is not as romantic, safe and calm as before, the small forest has become a parking-place, and what once happened to be a meadow where you played with your friends, has been transformed into a shopping-centre.

In addition to the obvious physical profit of outdoor recreation, this is also an arena for meeting people and thus important to our social relations. Outdoor recreation gives us the opportunity to develop new strategies for empowerment that can be transformed to life in general. My colleague, the Minister of Social Affairs; Guri Ingebrigtsen has, in her professional life as a doctor, studied the impact of outdoor recreation to mental well-being. She found that nature has a deeper meaning to mankind than we have been conscious of. Contact with nature is an important source for the creation of ideas and language, especially concerning feelings.

There is a miscorrelation between the documented health-effect from outdoor-recreation and the political focus on this matter. The Norwegian Government has put this subject high on its political agenda and is working on a special report to the Parliament about the health- and environmental aspects of outdoor recreation. We want to especially emphasize children's green environment. The Ministry of the Environment is responsible for the project, and we have engaged several NGO´s in the process asking for advice and discussing approaches, challenges and visions. The report will be forwarded by the Government early next year.

-------------------------------------------

Focusing on positive health-factors of the environment does not of course mean that we can just forget the negative ones. One environemental challenge that has obvious health aspects is the increased use of chemicals in all kinds of products, and the threat this may be to coming generations.

The release and dispersal of hazardous substances into the environment is one of the most serious threats against sustainable development – and therefore to the future of our children. The use of chemical substances has increased alarmingly in the last 50 years. Global production of organic chemical substances has increased from approximately 7 million tons in 1950 to approximately 250 million tons today. Chemicals are now used in almost all production-processes, and all manufactured products contain chemicals. A substantial number of these chemicals may be hazardous both to human health and to the environment.

The health of children may be threatened both from chemicals released from products and from pollution in the environment. Products made especially for children may also contain health-threatening substances. Children cannot adequately protect themselves against these hazardous substances, and they are often more vulnerable to their effects than grown-ups are. It is therefore our responsibility as adult decisionmakers to provide children with an extra protection.

We do not know enough about how chemicals affect children. Nor do we know enough about which chemicals occur in products children may be in contact with, or which chemicals they might be affected by through the environment. However, we do know that some chemicals may cause serious damage to human health. It is therefore important that we use the precautionary principle as the guiding principle for our work in this area. Chemicals should not be included in products aimed at children unless they have been sufficiently proved not to affect their health.

The Norwegian government will therefore give high priority to efforts aimed at protecting children from exposure to hazardous substances. The marketing of products or chemicals in products which might have a negative impact on children`s health will be limited or banned. Lack of knowledge is one of the greatest challenges in this work. We will therefore give high priority to research that contributes to increased knowledge on the effects of chemicals on the health of children.

It is also important to improve and raise the level of information about the chemical content in products - so that parents, grandparents and others, may themselves have the opportunity to make informed choises to safeguard our children. You will find some of our publications on this subject at our stand in the exhibition hall.

----------------------------------------------

An important global issue of health and environment is gene technology. A topic currently heavily debated in Europe. Why is this technology so controversial? Actually I do not find it so difficult to understand.

Monster salmons, ever lasting tomatoes, insect poisonous food plants – they touch our feelings as to what is ethically right and wrong. And we ask ourselves as consumers: Do these products pose a risk to my health or the environment? Do we need these new products? Are they better than the conventional ones, and are they produced in an ethically acceptable way?

I think all these questions have to be properly answered before consumers fully accept genetically modified plants and animals. The Norwegian gene technology act is in an exceptional position in requesting assessments of ethics, benefit to the community and sustainability connected to approval of GMO-products. It is our experience that these regulations contribute to developing this new technology in a sustainable direction.

Progress on international regulations and agreements in the gene technology field has recently been made. About a week ago the Cartagena protocol on biosafety was signed by several countries at the conference of the parties under the UN Convention on biological diversity. The biosafety protocol is a global instrument to facilitate a proper risk assessment prior to cross border movements of GMO’s.

The Norwegian Government welcomes the Protocol. The reason why the negotiations succeeded, I believe, is because it combined and balanced the different interests into what in our view represents a win - win solution. The protocol is in sum and in the long run beneficial for both GMO exporting countries, GMO importing countries, biotechnology industry, consumers, human health and the environment.

Furthermore, the protocol is in itself a break-through for the operationalisation of the precautionary principle. For the first time in history the international community has succeeded in coming up with a tool to ensure the sustainable development of a new and emerging technology.

---------------------------------------------

"Think globally, act locally", this famous proverb so often used after the Rio-conference, is a good challenge also in the field of health and environment. But inbetween the global and the local is an important regional dimension which should not be forgotten.

1.1.1

The environmental problems of Northwest-Russia have a dimension and a character, which Norway and the countries in the Barents Region cannot possibly neglect. We have a self-interest in reducing these problems. It is evident that Russian authorities can not solve their problems alone. They need support from the international community.

I think we must concentrate more efforts in the co-operation with Russia in the field of environment and health. Here, the challenges are increasing. The problems come at the same time as there is a significant reduction of public social services. But, they also come as a heritage of the Soviet period. Gigantic industrial plants were manifestations of prosperity and pride. They made the foundation of cities. Today, enthusiasm is replaced by concern. Industrial activities and pollution cause human illnesses and distress. People are concerned about the health effects after decades of industrialisation. But, people are also afraid of loosing their jobs, their income. These are the paradoxes Russian authorities meet daily. These are problems they have to solve. I think we must be realistic. Things will not change over-night.

1.1.2 The leading idea behind the Norwegian environmental co-operation with Russia is to promote sustainable development. We wish to integrate environmental dimensions in all spheres of society. This is our ambitious goal. We think that sustainable used in this sense presupposes a stable development of the Barents region.

Over the past years mapping, monitoring, and research have deepened our insights into the environmental conditions of Northwest-Russia. The contrast between the heavily polluted industrial areas and the vast territories of untouched and unique nature is overwhelming.

Directly, pollution affects Norwegian settlements and industry. Indirectly, environmental disasters in Northwest-Russia could trigger off mental and social distress. This could create instability in our region. Pollution of the waters may have serious consequences for Norwegian fisheries, harming our bilateral management of the fisheries.

We have pollution hot spots in our region: Industrial plants discharge wastewater directly into rivers and sea. Heavy metals and persistent organic pollutants accumulate in the food chain and threaten the health of the local population. Contaminant levels in some Arctic birds and mammals affect their reproduction and immune systems. We notice changes associated with high levels of PCB. There are significant challenges related to future potential nuclear accidents. Large areas could suffer damage from radioactive materials and waste.

Ten years of environmental co-operation has shown that we must work with a long-time perspective. Our recipe is to continue our good bilateral co-operation on these issues. We will assist our Russian neighbours in solving, if only some, of their environmental and health problems.

---------------------------------------------

Finally...............

Many environmental health problems are associated with poverty and lack of essential resources. At the same time, there are environmental threats associated with development itself, such as the aforementioned gene technology, increased energy use and industrial pollution. A key objective for the environment side is therefore to promote and contribute to healthier production methods in all parts of the world. We must ensure that the development process also brings with it technological solutions and other innovations that secure human well being. We work on two main levels; On the one hand, we support the further development of binding international conventions and agreements in areas such as climate change, chemicals, biological diversity etc. On the other hand, we seek to work on the household and community level to expand access to water, sanitation, cleaner fuels and waste management systems.

There is no doubt that in the long run a healthy environment and a sustainable use of the natural resources is a prerequisite for good health for the coming generations.

But the links between health and environment issues are complex, and there is a need for seminars like these to improve our understanding of how the different issues interact.

I hereby decalere the 6 ^th> World Congress on Environmental Health opened, and wish you the best of luck with the conference. Thank you for your attention!